relief to housing is provided through the rebate of 60 per cent of the normal value

added tax on the wage cost of new residential construction. OECD estimates suggest this second tax subsidy cost 2.2 billion kronur in 2001.3 In total, these two tax

benefits amount to about 0.9 per cent of GDP. In part as a result of these subsidies, home ownership is high, at over 80 per cent of households. The rental market focuses on low-income families. About a quarter of the stock of rental housing

is owned by local authorities and is allocated by social welfare agencies to their

most needy clients. Rent allowances to needy families in privately-owned units is

provided to 30 per cent of renters, but equalled only 0.1 per cent of GDP in 2001.

… and policy changes could allow goals to be reached more efficiently

Adding the value of tax concessions, government guarantees to housing

and housing authority bonds and assistance to low-income households suggests

that the value of government housing assistance is in the neighbourhood of

1¾ per cent of GDP. While much of this assistance is means-tested and hence may

company was to be offered for sale on overseas markets as well as the Icelandic

market, possibly starting in 2002. The arrangement and timing of the third stage

was to take account of prevailing conditions on the stock market at such time.

The initial stage was set for 19-21 September 2001. At that time, a total of

14 per cent of the shares in the company was offered to the public and to employees. According to the terms decided, employees were invited to purchase approximately 1 per cent of the total shares in the Company and the public

approximately 13 per cent. In the event, only 5 per cent of shares were subscribed, and following the government’s decision to allow investors to back out of

their offers, only 2¼ per cent of shares in the company were purchased. The government proceeded with the search for a strategic investor and narrowed this

search to TeleDanmark in December 2001. However, an agreement on terms could

not be reached, and the process was abandoned in February 2002. It is now apparent that the bursting of the global bubble in the market value of telecommunications firms, in conjunction with reduced profitability in that sector following the

strong expansion in capacity over the late 1990s, resulted in particularly poor timing for the sale of Iceland Telecom. There have also been some who have argued

that the government expected too high a price for the company. The government

should proceed with privatisation in the not-too-distant future, since the likely efficiency benefits remain to be exploited. The efforts of the Post and Telecom Administration to ensure competitive pricing will be important in determining that such

gains accrue to consumers, particularly since there is only one other competing in

telecommunications services.

Deregulation of the electricity sector is a major undertaking…

While the privatisation of Iceland Telecom has been delayed, restructuring of the electricity sector in Iceland will prove more challenging, and only the

planning stage has begun. Currently, the electricity market is dominated by undertakings primarily controlled by the state or local authorities, and power-intensive

firms with long-term contracts account for the majority of demand. The latter feature will only grow with the additional large-scale projects now underway or under

The NPC operates the central transmission grid and delivers electricity to

all distributors on the net at the same tariff. Distribution is handled by 12 utilities

with exclusive rights to distribute and sell in defined areas, with identical tariffs in

each area. A separate entity, the State Electric Company, has the duty to distribute

to areas without a local authority, and private parties are allowed to distribute but

none do. Several problems with the current system have been inducements for

reform. For example, the NPC’s tariffs lump together fees for production and transmission; a number of distributing companies have claimed they can produce electricity more cheaply than the cost of purchasing from the NPC; and the system

does not distinguish between natural monopoly activities such as transmission

and system operation and competitive areas such as generation and distribution.

In addition, reform is needed to comply with Directive 96/92/EC as part of the

European Economic Area (EEA) agreement.

As a result, the parliament has been considering legislation to restructure

the industry, although progress has been slow – with the proposals before it in

the 2001-02 session postponed until this year. Restructuring would open generation and sale to competition by removing exclusive rights, privileges and obligations of current government enterprises and equalising taxation of parties

performing similar functions. For example, such reforms might eliminate the

advantage of government guarantees of NPC debt as well as NPC’s duty to produce enough electricity to meet all demand. Proposals suggest that large purchasers of electricity should be able to choose their supplier this year, with a complete

opening by 2005, but this seems unlikely given the slow pace of legislative

progress thus far. A separate undertaking with independent management would

perform transmission and system operation. The operator would be required to

ensure equal access to the grid and have the sole right to build new lines. Separately managed parties would undertake distribution, with concessions for specific

regions (although joint ownership of the system operator and distributors may be

allowed). Tariffs for monopoly areas would be determined through an income

framework set by a regulatory body (the National Energy Authority). Proposals

have called for upper and lower profitability limits: a lower limit of 2 per cent

return on equity and an upper limit of double the rate of interest on state bonds.

Regulators would have the right to demand rationalisation if their evaluation of

cost levels deems them unacceptable.

… and efficiency gains should be pursued

In very broad terms, the government’s plans are a step forward and are

consistent with the recommendations in the previous Survey: in particular, natural

monopoly and competitive areas would be separated, competition for retail customers would be introduced and government-owned enterprises in the sector

would eventually be privatised. But a number of issues remain outstanding. An

important concern is regional: costs for transmission and distribution are not uniform; they are lower in Reykjavik than in outlying areas, reflecting relative population densities. The current system – with uniform tariffs for power from the central

grid across regions – does not provide incentives for efficient use. It appears likely

that deregulation will preserve regional cross-subsidisation. It would be more efficient if such subsidies were not tied explicitly to electricity use, so that incentives

were preserved on the margin, but the use of lump-sum transfers may be infeasible from a political perspective. As costs also vary through time, prices should as

well – with long-term contracts allowing for smoothing by customers if desired.

Broader development issues will also be relevant. Expansion of large-scale powerintensive industry has been and will continue to be of macroeconomic importance

in Iceland. To date, such expansions have occurred through long-term power contracts with the NPC, with the cost of such investments initially financed through

government-guaranteed debt issues and the tariff structure in the contracts benefiting from the NPC’s tax-exempt status. It appears that the NPC will not be privatised for some time. Nonetheless, moves toward a private market would assist in

facilitating foreign equity investments in power generation associated with large

projects, thereby insulating Iceland from some of the risk. Finally, rate-of-return

regulation could be improved. Because of the tendency of such systems to provide inadequate cost discipline, the proposals have included a requirement that a

certain rate of productivity improvement be incorporated into the base price each

year. While this is a positive feature, a price-cap mechanism with required productivity improvement could spur greater efficiency gains, but care would need to be

taken to ensure adequate performance through a broadening of efficiency criteria

to include customer service and reliability measures, which might otherwise be

neglected (Joskow, 1997).

Expansion of power-intensive industry

Expansion in the aluminium sector would substantially increase export earnings

Significant expansion of aluminium production in Iceland is planned. This

calls for heavy investment over several years, leading to notable macroeconomic

consequences through at least the middle of this decade (as discussed in

Chapter I) and requiring adjustments in monetary and fiscal policies to facilitate

macroeconomic balance (as discussed in Chapter II). To consider the broader economic effects, it is useful to consider the current status of the aluminium industry

and the effects of different planned or proposed projects. Iceland currently has

two aluminium smelters located in the southwestern part of the country. The Alcan

site has a current production capacity of 170 000 tonnes per year, with an operating license for 200 000 tonnes. The Nordic Aluminium smelter has a current production capacity of 90 000 tonnes per year and an operating license for double

that amount. These are very large by Icelandic standards: the two smelters con-

sume approximately 50 per cent of annual electricity production (with other

power-intensive industry accounting for an additional 15 per cent).

Expansion plans over the next decade have focussed on three possible

projects. The largest is a greenfield industrial project by Alcoa in Reydarfjördur in

eastern Iceland with a production capacity of 322 000 tonnes per year. The plant

would require more than 4 TWh of electricity per year (or more than 50 per cent of

current production); the NPC would build a hydro-powered plant in the region to

supply the required energy. The state and local authorities would build local infrastructure, including harbour facilities. At present, the only remaining hurdle is final

government approval, which will likely occur in February. Construction of the

hydropower plant would begin this year, while much of the smelter construction

would follow. Aluminium production is expected to start in 2007. There are also

plans to expand the Nordic Aluminium and Alcan smelters in stages by as much as

210 000 and 290 000 tonnes per year, respectively, by 2013, though only about

40 per cent of this expansion (at Nordic Aluminium) is slated for commissioning

by 2008. If these expansions were fully implemented, the electricity requirements

at the two smelters would triple from current levels. In conjunction with the

smelter in eastern Iceland, this would result in aluminium production increasing

four-fold from current levels (260 000 tonnes), to over 1 million tonnes per year,

with aluminium smelters then accounting for as much as 80 per cent of electricity

demand in Iceland. Both these projects are in the planning stages and have not

yet received private party or government approval.

As emphasised in the discussion of the outlook in Chapter I, the activity

associated with any of these projects would be a plus for growth and affect monetary policy and the fiscal position in the medium term. However, the large potential increase in the importance of aluminium in exports could lead to new

revenue in 2000; if all the projects were to proceed, that share could rise to nearly

half. On the one hand, such an expansion would increase diversification, as marine

products accounted for about two-thirds of merchandise export revenue in 2000.

However, this diversification would be towards a single product subject to large

price swings. This could contribute to volatility in the terms of trade, with corresponding difficulties in managing the current account and achieving internal balance. However, such concerns are less pressing than a simple consideration of the

export implications might indicate. The majority of the income associated with the

aluminium exports accrues to the foreign owners of the capital, and the terms-oftrade shocks have no direct effect on domestic consumers and probably only

small effects on the value of the krona. The additional domestic value-added

associated with the projects in the long run, primarily from electricity generation

and spillovers on local activity, will be affected by fluctuations in the aluminium

price (in particular, the price of electricity paid by the smelters is typically linked

to aluminium prices) to a much lesser extent than trade flows. Based on earlier

estimates on the long-run impact of a different project, the three proposals would

together raise GDP between 2ẵ and 6 per cent and GNP between 1ẳ per cent and

3 per cent.

The projects have broad economic policy consequences

These power-intensive energy projects affects broader aspects of public

policy, particularly as regards the electricity sector and regional development. The

NPC clearly benefits from the government backing of its debt and favourable tax

treatment, and the current system of assessing these mega projects is not completely transparent. For example, the NPC commissioned a study of the financial

return of the hydro-power project in eastern Iceland (associated with the Alcoa

project) (Landsvirkun, 2001): under reasonable assumptions, the real return is

expected to lie in the neighbourhood of 6 per cent per year. This lies above the

likely financing cost of the project, reflecting in part government backing, but not

by a large margin. And the project would double the company’s capital base – with

all the increase tied to a single project. Any efforts to deregulate and eventually

privatise the NPC could be complicated by such concentrated risks. With respect

to regional issues (discussed more broadly below), the Alcoa project is linked with

hopes for preserving regional populations. Between 1990 and 2000, the population in the eastern region (Austerland) fell 10 per cent, to 11 930 persons or 4.2 per

cent of the national total. The region is heavily dependent on the fishing industry.

The lack of diversified employment and educational opportunities has contributed to the out-migration of young people. The smelter would help increase

demand for skilled labour, with a projected level of employment near

500 persons. Their presence would no doubt have favourable multiplier effects on

services in the area. However, it is likely that the total boost would do no more

than stabilise the size of the local population.

Regional development

The population has become more concentrated in the capital region

While the share of Iceland’s population in Reykjavik has been remarkably

stable since 1950 (at about 40 per cent), the population in the areas immediately

surrounding the capital has grown by one-third since 1990, lifting the proportion of

the population in the capital region to about 62 per cent in 2000. Of the eight

major regions, only the capital region and a bordering region, the Sudurnes, experienced any significant increase in population over the last decade (Figure 23).

Increased concentration has been driven by several factors. Perhaps most importantly, the decline in employment in traditional industries – fish and fish processing and agriculture – was particularly sharp (dropping from 15 per cent of the total

in 1996 to 12½ per cent in 2000), while employment increases in other industries,

the section below on sustainable development, population growth in the capital

region has also contributed to increased traffic congestion and some deterioration

in air quality.

A range of government policies are aimed at preserving regional balance

The depopulation of rural areas has been followed by efforts to stem

migration to the capital area and make other areas more attractive – a goal common to a number of other OECD countries. A range of such policies have already

been mentioned: i) part of the rationale for an aluminium smelter and hydropower

plant in the Austurland is to diversify the economic base of that region and

increase its population; ii) policies to boost the income of farmers have maintained employment in this industry and hence rural population (see below); and

iii) maintaining uniform tariffs for electricity from the central grid across areas with

different costs has been driven by regional concerns. In addition, construction of a

large tunnel in the Austurland linking two communities (specifically, in the East

Fjords, between Fáskrúdsfjördur and Reydarfjördur) has been driven by regional

development concerns (although it will also potentially aid in transportation needs

associated with the power plant and aluminium smelter in the area). The difficult situation in municipal finances and the failure of the above patchwork of policies to

lessen the drift toward the capital region has led to calls for further changes.

One issue has been the amalgamation of small municipalities. Current law

allows the central government to require municipalities with fewer than

50 inhabitants to merge with a neighbour, and there have been proposals to

increase the minimum size of municipalities, perhaps significantly (to over

2 000 persons, for example; based on year 2000 populations, this would lower the

number of municipalities from over 100 to perhaps 70 or less). In addition, the

municipal equalisation fund has been designed to spur amalgamation: the fund

pays the costs associated with such mergers, discriminates somewhat against communities with fewer than 300 inhabitants and subsidises municipal debts after

amalgamation. Stronger efforts may be necessary if the government is to meets its

target of shrinking the number of municipalities to 43. The presumption is that

larger municipalities could provide a wider range of services and do so more efficiently, raising the attractiveness of regions outside the capital. However, such

amalgamations could also increase the distances from services for many residents

and lower a sense of local control, reducing the attractiveness of rural regions.

Efforts to maintain regional populations will remain a priority as long as

public opinion is supportive. But these could be improved by ensuring that marginal incentives for efficient production and consumption decisions are unaffected. Indirect policies that distort price signals – important with respect to